The morality police are back

“Law enforcement officers” want to check compliance with “traditional values.” They were already responsible for morality in the USSR, and such an experience cannot be repeated

The Russian authorities continue attempts to ideologically unite society on the basis of “traditional Russian values.” Now they are going to do this not only through propaganda and “talking about what is important,” but also more actively - through control, including the police. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has prepared a presidential decree, which proposes adding the preservation and strengthening of “traditional Russian values” to the tasks of the Russian police. The document is posted on the portal of regulatory legal acts; if it is adopted, the police will have a new function - monitoring morality.

How successful this plan of the Russian authorities will be can be imagined if we turn to the history of the Soviet Union: it is from there that modern Russian leaders draw inspiration, and it is the past that shapes their worldview.

After Stalin's death in 1953, his successors began to look for new ways to govern the country. Repressions, executions and gulags were costly, unproductive and dangerous methods of governance, because the elite themselves could find themselves in disgrace. But providing the Soviet population with comfort and a decent life was also not easy. Then Khrushchev and his ideologists decided to force people to live according to the laws of “communist morality.” According to these principles (which later formed the basis of the “Moral Code of the Builder of Communism” adopted by the XXII Congress of the CPSU), Soviet citizens were required to adhere to “moral purity”, “simplicity and modesty in public and personal life.” To simplify its task, the state delegated the functions of monitoring public behavior to the citizens themselves. Thus, under Khrushchev, public organizations and vigilantes began to appear, which helped maintain discipline and ensure that people did not deviate from communist morals.

One of the striking examples of the use of public control was the VI World Festival of Youth and Students, which was held in Moscow in 1957 under the slogan “For peace and friendship!” After decades of international isolation, Soviet people saw foreigners on the streets of Moscow for the first time. New acquaintances appeared at the festival, romantic and intimate relationships arose between representatives of different countries. Having learned about this, the Moscow authorities immediately created special squads that caught such couples. The vigilantes did not touch foreign guests and mainly punished Soviet girls: they cut off part of their hair in order to later identify, shame and punish them for “immoral” behavior.

Although the vigilantes themselves were not always examples of highly moral behavior. Thus, in the early 1960s, detachments were formed in Moscow to combat street prostitution. In one of the city districts the following incident occurred:

Sixteen vigilantes detained a young woman working in the sex industry, but instead of punishing her, they took turns visiting her home and also using her services.

As a result, one of the vigilantes contracted gonorrhea.

During Brezhnev’s time, “morality police” units were actively used to combat sexually transmitted diseases. In the mid-1960s, a syphilis epidemic began in some Soviet republics. Epidemiologists sounded the alarm. The police immediately began organizing raids against people leading an “immoral lifestyle” - primarily sex workers, homosexuals and homeless people. In the late 1960s, several such raids were carried out in Odessa. One of the reports said: “It should be noted the useful role of raids conducted by the police together with doctors of the dermatovenerological dispensary. Raids are planned in advance, gathering places for women of easy virtue (prostitutes), homosexuals and dens of debauchery are studied.” Places where homosexuals gathered came under special control. “Known places of concentration of homosexuals were brought under systematic surveillance - public toilets at train stations, squares, parks, etc. Meetings of homosexuals are usually held in these places, from where they are sent to carry out acts of sodomy,” the report said. Those detained as a result of such raids were sent for forced medical examination. In those cases where it was possible to prove “sodomy”, they were prosecuted for it. Those who managed to avoid punishment were still entered into a special file cabinet.

During Gorbachev’s time, with the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in different republics of the USSR, “morality police” units again began to form to fight the same individuals “leading an immoral lifestyle.” They were now called “at risk” and blamed for the spread of HIV throughout the country (while HIV was actively spreading, for example, as a result of the repeated use of disposable syringes in the Soviet maternity hospitals of Elista and Volgograd). Unlike the Khrushchev and Brezhnev times, during Gorbachev’s time “perestroika” and “glasnost” began in society, so the activities of the “morality police” were covered by the press. The article “The moral police are involved in the fight against prostitution” in the “Medical Newspaper” described the work of one of the detachments this way: “A car is circling around Riga at night... Employees of the city dermatovenous dispensary and the reception center of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Riga City Executive Committee went on another raid. They “work out” one of the other points on the planned route: cafes, restaurants, hotels. It was here that, until recently, local prostitutes used to gather in anticipation of a suitable client.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the abolition of the article for sodomy, law enforcement agencies were very upset that now they did not have the opportunity to legally terrorize persons leading an “immoral lifestyle,” in particular homosexuals. Thus, the head of the 12th department of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, Vladimir Pron, commented with regret on the abolition of the article for sodomy in 1993 in Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “Society sought debauchery, and it got it. Currently, the police do not have the right to control homosexuals in any way. The article punishing homosexuality has been removed from the Criminal Code. Even if we know about the den of “blues,” we still do not have the right to make any claims against them, since these dens, as a rule, become legal clubs.”

Obviously, today, 21 years later, the Russian police have enough legal grounds to prosecute a wide range of people for “immorality,” LGBT propaganda, extremism and many other “useful” laws that allow them to prosecute as many people as possible. So now there is no need to complain, as Vladimir Pron did in 1993.